


no chance, no way, i won't say it

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 04:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9162337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Lane and Joan decide to turn a one-night stand into a friends with benefits arrangement.You can guess how well that goes.





	

Nobody got out unscathed after the 1969 SC&P Fourth of July party, except for maybe Mathis and Ginsberg. And even then, Joan wasn’t sure if that particular outcome was an accident or if it was by sheer design. Because who the hell would want to sleep with either one of those two idiots?

 _“Shush,”_ Lane hissed to her, the second time she posed this question out loud. As if anyone was going to overhear them or even see them in this crowd! Compared to the men in love beads and tight jeans, Lane's patterned collared shirt and three-piece herringbone suit were positively primeval, even if he had grown out his sideburns. “The night isn't even over, and you’re going to hurt someone’s feelings.”

Joan gave him an outraged look, and gestured with her half-full glass toward the other side of the packed bar, where Stan and Peggy, Ginsberg, Ken and Cynthia, most of the freelancers and a good portion of the secretary pool were fighting for space at a cluttered four-top table, along with half of New York. A little bit of gin sloshed out onto her hand and onto her blousy silk dress.

“No, I’m not,” she huffed, although she was definitely too drunk to go home in this condition. She wasn’t shitfaced or dizzy, just pleasantly buzzed; if she went home now she’d just spend the next three hours in her room with the radio turned up too loud, and would wake up on top of a pile of old screen siren dresses in the morning, with Kevin slinging paint onto her best furs. “Dawn’s not even here.”

“Wha—what does that have to do with anything?”

In the end, Joan didn’t even remember how it started. She and Lane had been talking by the jukebox, then wandered off from everybody else, and had ended up leaving the bar entirely, and walking down the avenue toward the Hilton.

Did they exchange a loaded look as they waited for the elevator to take them to the rooftop bar? Had their fingers brushed as they walked through the hotel lobby? Either way, one minute they were chatting comfortably about office gossip – he had some interesting theories about Stan and Peggy, of all people – and the next, they were making out so eagerly Lane hit the emergency stop button with his fist just as Joan pushed him up against the panels of the elevator.

“Oh,” he moaned, arching his back as her right hand trailed over the seam of his trousers. She took the bulge between his legs in a sure, teasing grip. “God, Joan, yes.”

“Like this?”

With a little huff of amusement, she squeezed him again, gently this time. He groaned so loudly it seemed to echo through the entire elevator shaft.

“Y-yeah,” he mumbled as she unzipped him, and shivered as her thumb skated gently over the taut, tented fabric of his pants. “Yes. That’s—”

She stopped moving her hand for a second, and pulled back to stare at him with wide, unfocused eyes. If they had a bed and a headboard, she could ride him until he screamed.

“’S get a room,” she said, and moved backwards, almost tripping over her own shoes as she stumbled upright.

Pressed against the wall and hard as nails, with his hands gripping the railing and his pristine suit mussed, Lane looked so sinfully indecent she wanted to snap a picture of him, just to preserve the image in her mind. This is what he looks like without all those stuffy mannerisms. This is what he looks like when he’s wild.

“What.”

“I wanna do you,” she huffed, and tilted her head backwards in the direction of the double doors. “In a bed. Come on.”

“Oh.” He nodded once before zipping up, and slapping at the lobby button with a loose palm. It took two tries to get the car to move again. “Erm. Okay.”

And that was that.

“Nothing else needs to change,” she remembered saying later, in the middle of a pre-dawn smoke, with Lane lying awake and practically sober next to her. The cherry on her cigarette cast an eerie orange glow over the bed, and the overall mood had completely shifted. Before, there had been no room for awkwardness; they’d had all the liquid courage they’d needed to take the leap. Now, she was worried things might get too weird if they didn’t at least talk about it, especially since they’d spent most of the night together. “Technically, we could just keep having sex. Have fun, no strings attached.”

 _If you wanted that,_ she didn’t say.

Tension was practically radiating off of Lane in waves, but he was quiet for what felt like almost a minute before he finally spoke.

“How would that work?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She took one last drag from her cigarette, and grimaced at the butt before reaching over to stub it into the ashtray. Down to the filter already. Damn. “We could just ask to make love when we feel like it. Keep things spontaneous.”

“Why not get together,” Lane let out a cough, “sorry. More regularly?”

Joan turned a puzzled look on him. “How often would you want to meet?”

_Was he that lonely?_

“I don’t know.” His hands were folded primly over the blankets, and rested in the middle of his chest as he stared up at the ceiling. Maybe it was the only way he could have this conversation. “Erm. Is once a week—too much?”

“Hm.”

“I mean, if it’s—perhaps we could try to—”

She rolled onto her back, still mentally folding the first idea into her weekly schedule, along with Mom’s poker games and Kevin’s playdates and all the potential client dinners she probably wouldn’t be able to get out of. Well, all things considered, the logistics wouldn’t be difficult, especially since she was a name partner now, not an office drone or a secretary. And if they scheduled dates in advance, which seemed more his style, they could even meet after business hours.

“What do you think?” Lane’s question punctured her train of thought. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“Well, once a week could work,” she said slowly, “as long as we had a decent schedule. I mean, it wouldn’t be like this all the time, since I can’t stay out very late. But at least it’d be easy to plan.”

Lane let out a long breath; Joan turned to glance at him, although he didn’t look over at her, just kept staring up at the ceiling. From this angle, his eyes glittered in the near-darkness.

“Oh. Good. That’s—good. Yes.”

“So you agree?”

“Mm.” He pulled the covers up a little higher so they covered more of his bare chest. Joan was tempted to make fun of him for being so shy, but decided not to push it. “Seems, er, reasonable.”

“Okay,” Joan said.

And that was that.

 

**

 

They decided on Thursdays—partially because it fell on the same day as the Fourth of July party had, so there was some kind of continuity there—and partially because it just turned out to be the most convenient day of the week.

Weekends were impossible. Plus, Joan’s mother had poker with the old ladies two Wednesdays a month, Kevin’s Kindermusik class had just moved to Tuesdays, and neither of them were very keen on Mondays. A standing sex date on Mondays just seemed depressing.

Before their first scheduled tryst, Lane called her on her private line in the middle of the morning. She noticed the extension light up while she was in the middle of some paperwork and answered with a faint, confused:

"Hello?”

“It’s me. Erm. What hotel did you want? For the—well, for tonight?”

Joan almost laughed, but suppressed it just in time. Where the hell did he want to pitch this tent, the Ritz-Carlton?

“The Hilton was fine.”

“Right. Excellent.” He sounded relieved. “I’ll, erm, make the reservation personally, and—let you know when to expect me.”

“Okay,” Joan was only half listening. “Bye.”

That night, the beginning of their tryst was almost as awkward as the phone call. Lane was clearly overthinking it, and Joan was on automatic pilot, still dwelling on the way one of the porters had glanced at her when she arrived. Did she know him? Did he know her? After the second or third time their teeth clicked together, mid-kiss, Lane pulled away, bracing his hands on her waist.

“Wait.” His breath was coming fast, although strangely, he was still wearing everything but his glasses, which were tucked safely into his breast pocket. “Let’s—is—is there something you want, particularly?”

“Sex,” said Joan blankly.

This made him smile. “You know what I meant.”

“Well, I don’t know. Nothing comes to mind.” Joan gave a little shrug. Honestly, specifics didn’t seem to matter much in the long run, although she would never say that out loud. Of course she wanted the sex to be satisfying, but overall....

“It was nice last time,” she offered.

“ _Nice._ ” Lane rolled his eyes. “God in heaven.”

“Well,” Joan was too braindead to figure out if _he_ was asking for something special, “usually, I’m up for anything, but I honestly don’t want to think right now.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

The sly timbre of his voice made her raise an eyebrow. One corner of his mouth had twitched up in a mischievous smirk.

“Is that a good thing?” she asked, hopeful.

His smirk widened. “Very.”

With that, he got up from the bed, removed his coat, and laid it carefully across the back of the nearest armchair. When he sat down again, he seemed like a completely different person, as if shedding that single layer had ripped away all of his normal English reserve, and left Lane the paramour in place of Lane the odd businessman or Lane the strict financier.

“I’ll make you come with my fingers, first,” he said simply, and the tenor of his voice, soft and straightforward, pooled low in Joan’s belly. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened as he leaned forward to punctuate each following sentence with a single chaste kiss. “And then my mouth.” Kiss. “And then my cock.” Kiss. He rumbled out a laugh against her lips before he pulled back. “And if that’s not enough, I’ll have you so many times you won’t know how to breathe.”

 _Oh, please, yes,_ Joan wanted to blurt out, but all she could do was nod her head yes, several times, like a demented bobblehead doll.

“Top off,” Lane told her, matter-of-fact, as he leaned in for another kiss; this one so obscenely dirty it made Joan gasp with delight. “Skirt on.”

Immediately, she reached for her zipper.

 

**

 

After that first Thursday, it was like magic.

They’d arrive at the Hilton in shifts, one right after the other. Usually Lane got there first, because he’d developed a habit of walking out of work at five fifty five on the dot. Joan was usually placing last minute phone calls until six or six ten, but she could usually duck out in time to meet him before six thirty. He liked having time to decompress before she got there, anyway.

Once she arrived, he was typically dressed down and had made himself comfortable, already missing his glasses or his jacket or sometimes even his vest and trousers. She’d quickly cast off earrings and shoes and suit pieces into the floor in order to relax.

Their trysts didn’t always start with sex, which was surprising. Nine times out of ten they’d tear each other’s clothes off within sixty seconds, but every so often they had dinner first, and chatted comfortably over room service, about mundane things going on with Nigel and Kevin, or other funny personal stories. Or they’d lie in bed and watch TV for a little while, not saying much, until one person rolled over and offered to make out during the longer or more boring ad buys.

Overall, it was one of the most functional relationships Joan had experienced in years. Never mind that it wasn’t an actual relationship, and was only about two friends having some quick fun, keeping themselves from becoming rusty over a long dry spell. But as Joan was getting dressed or freshening up before going home, she liked running the different encounters through her mind. She liked sharing this kind of secret with someone.

Granted, the fun wasn’t going to last forever, and they both knew it. But Joan was still carefree enough to enjoy good things while they lasted, and so when Lane offered to take her to the rooftop bar before their usual evening, one Thursday night, she decided not to overthink it, and said yes.

After all, it was just sex. Who cared where they ate beforehand?

 

**

 

Joan was never going to be able to look at Chevy the same way again. At the precise time Ginsberg’s prized new campaign aired, she and Lane were troubleshooting the logistics of the reclining lotus.

Lying flat on her back with her legs splayed out across the comforter, with a _What’s My Line_ rerun playing in the background, she watched Lane read and re-read the page in his battered paperback as he knelt next to her, squinting at the small text and then at the illustration as if he thought it was lying.

“May need something under your back for this one.”

She motioned for him to hand her the paperback, and perused the text quickly. According to the picture, all she had to do was lie on the bed with her legs crossed indian-style. Unless the manual was trying to say she had to sit like some practicing yogi, with one foot balanced on each knee? If it _was_ saying that, they were definitely going to have to come up with a modification, because she’d have to break both ankles in order to achieve anything close to that type of flexibility.

She tossed the book back down onto the blankets, scrunching up her nose in a puzzled way. “I thought the lotus was the one where we were both sitting against the bedframe?”

“Lotus Blossom, technically.”

“What about the one where you’re sitting up on the bed, and you lay me back against your legs?”

“Glowing Juniper,” Lane grinned, although the expression was distant. “I liked that one.”

“Reminds me of the stretch we had to do for the presidential fitness test,” Joan said. She couldn’t help snorting out loud when Lane rolled his eyes in response, and got down on all fours in order to crawl closerto her, dragging one of the down pillows with him.

“Well. Let’s just have a go at this one. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

She crossed her legs without much trouble and got situated with the pillow jammed under her back. By the time Lane had one hand next to her hips and his other hand braced on the bed, holding down the seam of the book, another long commercial break had started.

Joan waited for him to confirm that he was ready to go, but he didn’t move. Instead, Lane had turned to look at the TV with narrowed eyes. On screen, brightly dressed girls on roller skates whizzed around this year’s newest Chevy, and the cherry-red car was showcased against a glittering goldenrod curtain that spanned the entire soundstage. Joan sighed as she recognized the location. Same place they’d rented from while pretending to film for Honda. Dawn had spent four weeks cajoling Ed from the film agency to keep it spotless. The camera crew kept having problems with dust bunnies.

“He must have gone over budget, with all those extras,” Lane grumbled, still caught up in the ad.

“Are you kidding?” Joan reached up and pinched one of Lane’s nipples out of spite. He yelped, and spun back to face her. “ _Concentrate.”_

“Now you’ve done it,” he said with a laugh, and pressed a hand to his chest, briefly, before putting his hands on either side of her shoulders and leaning in to nuzzle against her jaw. “You’ve injured me. ‘M going to file a formal complaint with this hotel.”

“Complain away,” Joan said breathlessly, already feeling a pleasant stretch in her thighs. He began to touch her, and they quit talking after that.

The next day, when Ginsberg demanded concrete feedback in the weekly traffic meeting, Joan decided to wait until everyone else had taken a turn before contributing. Peggy talked about the videography, Pete mentioned the car, and Harry spent two straight minutes blabbing about how hard it was to get Proctor & Gamble on the phone for the ad placement that had _followed_ Chevy before Ginsberg finally turned to the other end of the table.

Lane’s feedback was hilariously brief.

“Seemed like a seminal milestone.”

 _Oh, my god._ Joan bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

“All right, fine. Joan?”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I thought it was—“ she still hesitated way too long before completing the sentence “—good.”

Even the forced cheerfulness in her voice didn’t save her. Ginsberg let out an audible growl. Stan cleared his throat to disguise a laugh. And Peggy cast Joan a glare so aggravated she might as well have written _what the hell is your problem?!_ on a piece of paper and stapled it to Joan’s forehead.

“You know,” Ginsberg complained to no one in particular, as he shoved his marbled notebook onto the conference table and folded his arms over his chest, “I’m starting to think you didn’t even watch it.”

 

**

 

The nights Joan liked best were the ones that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. Evenings where she’d walk in exhausted and walk out buzzing with energy, or the smallest, random moments when she’d take Lane by surprise. He was so adventurous when they were alone that it was honestly a little difficult to shock him, but occasionally—just occasionally—she managed to do it.

This time, they hadn’t even made it to the bed. Joan was slumped against the long span of wall between the hallway and the desk, with her twitching legs still hitched loosely over Lane’s shoulders. His head was pillowed on top of her thigh.

On an impulse, she reached down and ran her hands through the back of his damp hair, her fingernails tickling down his scalp.

“Hmph.” Lane practically purred like a cat, and closed his eyes. “'S fantastic.”

“You just like getting a mouthful,” Joan teased. The man’s oral fixation probably had Sigmund Freud spinning in his grave.

“Mm. Cause you’re very delicious.”

She snorted out a laugh, and swatted the back of his head in an affectionate way. “What a freak.”

He raised his head with a deer-in-headlights expression, and sat up, forcing her to untangle her legs and scramble upright.

“Oh, Jesus.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud. “I meant—Lane, I wasn’t trying to—”

Before she could finish the sentence, Lane burst out laughing, and his face turned a bright tomato red. He pressed his forehead to her bare stomach, cackling uncontrollably and clutching at her hips like her body was the only thing tethering him to the ground.

Joan was still babbling, one hand resting on the back of his shoulders. Her face and neck felt so hot she was sure she’d turned purple.

“I meant it in a good way. You know that, right?”

He was so tickled he could barely even answer. “C—course you did.”

“Lane, I’m serious! Please don’t be offended. It’s not a bad thing.”

“N—’m not—offended. I promise.”

He swallowed another laugh as he scooted forward and mouthed a line of kisses up her stomach, then across her neck, and then over to the shell of her ear.

“Takes one to know one,” he finally whispered, and bit her earlobe.

She shuddered and groaned in surprise, then shrieked with laughter and shoved him backwards with one hand. He let out a shocked noise as he pitched into the carpet, ass-first.

Two minutes later, they were sprinting around the hotel suite stark naked. Joan was squealing like an idiot as she ran around the room in circles, and Lane roared with laughter as he chased her. They threw pillows at each other and flirted and feigned sprints around the sofa before diving on top of the bed.

Here, they wrestled on top of the mattress for a few minutes, like kids at a sleepover, just trying to pin each other down, until Lane finally settled his weight on top of her and started sucking deep, dark hickeys into the crook of her neck. That put a quick end to the playfighting.

“Hello, my little freak,” Lane murmured against Joan’s throat as his fingers found her clit. An inarticulate moan tore from her lungs as he kept going. “What shall we do now, hm?”

“Oh, god,” was all Joan could gasp as he slowly stroked her in time with his kisses, light and teasing, “oh, god, oh god—”

“Taking our Lord’s name in vain. Naughty.”

How the hell was Lane managing to make jokes when he was doing _this?_

“L—oh, Lane, please just—”

“Much better,” he murmured, and buried his fingers to the hilt, causing her to wail out loud.

 

**

 

After the hickey incident, Joan had to wear high-necked sweater dresses and scarves for almost a week to disguise the marks. Unfortunately, on day two, when Mom caught her getting ready for work and saw Joan’s throat was practically polka dotted with yellow-purple bruises, she let out a whoop of delight.

“I knew it.”

“Shut up,” Joan grumbled, and checked her makeup in the mirror for a third time, just to be certain. You couldn’t see them unless she was standing in direct sunlight, and even then, they just looked like weird shadows.

“So who is he?” her mother asked, and perched on the front of the dresser like they were gossiping in the high school bathrooms. From this angle, Mom’s short red hair had a visible silver glint to it. “How long have you been seeing this one?”

“Never mind.” Joan gave her a significant look. “We’re having fun. That’s all.”

“ _Fun?_ At your age?” Her mother scoffed. “Joanie, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Tell him to marry you or beat it already.”

She didn’t tell Lane about that, but her mood was noticeably dim for a couple of days. And if it took more than a week for her to get back in the swing of things, or to convince Lane that she wasn’t upset over missing a Thursday due to his Christmas vacation, then that was okay.

They could stop whenever it was necessary.

 

**

 

“You’re not—upset that I didn’t send you anything for the holiday. Are you?”

Basking in the afterglow of another pleasant winter evening, Joan shot Lane a very skeptical look, just to make sure she hadn’t hallucinated that comment.

“Why would you give me anything for Valentine’s Day?”

 _We’re not together,_ she didn’t say.

Technically, they had been meeting each other for over six months, not that she’d been keeping careful track of the dates. It had just occurred to her last week as she penciled in their appointments for the rest of the month—July to February. Over half a year. A surprisingly long stretch of time, considering this was a standing arrangement, and not a fling that only happened during office hours, or something spontaneous with a few long lunches and one or two weekend trips away to boot.

“Well, the girls had a lovely little exchange going. As did the creatives.”

“Yes,” Joan said with a disdainful sniff, “and tomorrow, the girls will all go right back to fighting over the three available men in that office.”

Lane pretended to be wounded. “They could be wonderful friends now. Expressions of kindness are supposed to lift the spirit.”

“What are you, writing for Hallmark?”

He laughed; although it was barely a chortle, it shook the bed. “You never know. Those silly little gifts may have cleared the air between two sworn enemies.”

Joan rolled her eyes. “This morning I saw Peggy and Shirley fighting – literally, _fighting_ – over a vase of red roses. Poor Shirley almost got her eyes clawed out.”

“Oh, dear,” Lane pulled an alarmed face. “Well, barring the possibility of sudden violence from Miss Olson, I can send you a bouquet for your birthday, if it, erm, isn’t too much.”

“No, don’t.” Joan blurted out. She bit her tongue, and quickly rephrased this statement. “Not to sound ungrateful, but every man with a pulse sends red roses. I don’t even like them.”

It was a slight exaggeration. Out of all the flowers her various lovers and boyfriends had bought her over the years – and yes, there had been quite a few arrangements – she’d been sent one or two bouquets that made her wonder why he’d bothered buying anything at all. Roses with obvious brown spots or soft wilted blooms with crispy edges just made her sad. Even the baskets of glossy red roses she’d received from wonderful beaus sometimes felt overwhelming, once she’d gotten over the buzz of being recognized and singled out from the rest of the girls.

But honestly, in this instance, roses were too much. It was too significant. She’d much rather Lane hum “Happy Birthday” to her while he was unzipping her dress in the hotel suite than send her some fake declaration of romantic sentiment neither of them actually believed.

Especially if all she was going to be able to do was watch those roses wither and die on the coffee table across from her desk, all while pretending they were actually from her mother.

“Well, all right.” Lane poked her in the side with one finger, and chuckled when Joan jumped a mile at the contact. “If you could only receive one flower for the rest of your life, which would you choose?”

“What? I don’t know.”

“You don’t like to garden? Or have any favorite place in the park?”

“Lane, this is Manhattan. It’s not like I’m walking on the wild moors.”

He didn’t laugh this time, and the sudden silence bothered her so much she decided to give him a real answer.

“Have you studied much art?”

He shook his head no.

Joan lifted her neck slightly and crooked one arm under her pillow so supported her head a little better.

“One of the first things I did when I moved here was visit the art museums,” she told him. “We never had time to go to the Smithsonian, but I always loved clipping the exhibition announcements and the pictures in the paper. So, the summer I arrived, I saved up my money and bought a ticket to MOMA.”

“Did you?”

She couldn’t help relishing the surprise in his voice. “Now, granted, I’m not very creative. But I always liked post-impressionism, which is why I went.”

“Ah. What did you see, then?”

Under the blankets, his calf idly brushed against hers.

“Fourteen Paintings by Vincent van Gogh.” Joan could still see the title written on the museum wall in bold, sharp letters. “A lot of people only wanted to see his self-portrait. They didn’t have many of the famous works then; they were all in Amsterdam or something.”

Lane shifted closer to her; she could feel the slight chill on his upper arms and chest before they even touched, and so she leaned her head against his shoulder with a soft sigh.

“It was incredible. All I did, for two hours, was walk around the floor and stare at all these beautiful portraits. Cypresses, wheatfields, skylark, fields under a stormy sky—” she paused, suddenly self-conscious. “This is a little off-topic.”

“No, please,” he urged. “Go on.”

“Well,” she cleared her throat, “to make a long story short, they didn’t have my favorite painting. But I spent so long looking at Fields Under Stormy Sky that the elderly docent slipped me a free postcard. Which is still in my office.”

 _And he offered to take me home,_ she didn’t add. _Although, for the record, I didn’t go._

“What made you like it?”

“The colors.” Joan closed her eyes, saw vivid streaks of yellow and blue and white across a rough canvas. “All those warm hues in the field, greens and reds and golds. It was like standing in the sunshine.”

She opened her eyes, glanced across Lane’s left shoulder at the clock on the nightstand, and then sat up abruptly when she noticed the time. _Ten twenty five._

“Shit. I was supposed to be home thirty minutes ago.”

Joan launched herself out of bed and quickly began to gather up her things. Lane scrubbed a hand through the back of his hair as he sat up and the champagne-colored sheet pooled around his waist. It didn’t fix the fact that his hair was sticking up in twenty different directions, but maybe he was just trying to wake up.

“Well, wait—finish your story before you go. Which painting was your favorite?”

“Didn’t I say that? Well, it’s just from the still lifes,” said Joan absently, as she pulled on her stockings as fast as possible. “Early series. Eighteen eighty eight, I think. Or maybe eighty nine. There’s either twelve or fifteen stems, I forget. He did so many.” She unrolled the last few inches of nylon up and over her right knee and cursed when it refused to clip into the garter belt. “Damn it. I’ve got to get this stupid clasp replaced.”

 _Or quit wearing the damn thing altogether,_ which she kept considering as the summer dresses got smaller and breezier each season.

“You could phone home and say you’re going to be late,” Lane said as he watched her clip her earrings on. She was almost fully dressed, now. “There’s really no need to rush out, not at this hour.”

“Hmph. Tell that to a four year old.” Joan spied her scarf under the desk, grabbed it, and quickly knotted it around her neck as she crossed the room. Without thinking, automatic, she walked back over to the bed, took Lane’s face in her hands and kissed him. “Sorry to run off. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Weirdly, he accepted this apology without another word.

After a long cab ride home, Joan was expecting a knock down, drag out fight about the late notice. But all her mother did was give her a little sass about being gone too long. She was surprisingly understanding about the situation, all things considered—and didn’t even ask if Joan had been with the same man who gave her all those hickeys, a few weeks beforehand.

The lack of questions made Joan uneasier than she’d expected. After twenty years of nothing but losers (her mother’s words), you’d think the woman would be chomping at the bit to meet her daughter’s steady lover, or to talk about him, even if it was just to find out his name. But she never asked for details.

And if Joan wished she could genuinely talk about Lane with a good girlfriend – at this point, she’d take anyone, even Peggy – the impulse usually passed as soon as it arrived.

 

**

 

One Thursday in May, Joan arrived to find Lane stretched out on top of the bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling. No lights were turned on, not even in the hallway. The TV was dark. He was still fully dressed, even wearing his shoes.

“Everything okay?” she asked as she slipped out of her heels.

Lane let out a prolonged groaning noise that said everything was, in fact, the polar opposite of okay. God, if he looked any more depressed, they’d be living in an Ingmar Bergman film by morning.

Joan shed her coat, and watched as it hit the carpet in a lump. After a second of thought, she sat down on the edge of the bed.

“’M not in the mood,” he muttered as she scooted closer. “You can go home if you want.”

“What happened?” Joan asked after a short pause. She was practically sitting next to him. Slowly, as if she was sticking her hand between the bars of a cage at the zoo, she reached out and placed a tentative hand on his hip.

He didn’t push it away, just sighed.

“’S Nigel,” he said softly. A little spike of alarm coursed through Joan’s chest as he continued. “Dropped out of school.”

Joan bit her lip to keep from blurting out the first expletive that came to mind. Well, that wasn’t ideal. And Lane didn’t seem keen to elaborate on just how he’d found this out, or when, or what Nigel’s reasons were, so Joan decided not to press him. Without speaking, she lay down next to him, and adjusted position so her chest was pressed against his side, and one of her legs was kicked over his hip.

“I mean, he’s never liked it,” Lane said after another minute. Joan felt the words buzz through his chest and into her ear as he spoke. “Made no secret of that. And the marks got worse every year.”

I used to think that he’d shape up once he went to university. You know. After he got away from the idiots and took a few courses he—well, enjoyed. Or might enjoy. He’s so very clever. But nothing—” he made a wounded noise. “God. Nothing’s changed a bit.”

Joan weighed the subtext as quickly as she could. Nigel hated school whereas Lane had loved it. Lane was worried Nigel wouldn’t be successful without a degree. Nigel was supposed to do everything on a set schedule without deviations, just as his father, or maybe both of his parents, did in the past.

“Did he tell you why?” She cleared her throat. “I mean, is he learning a trade, or starting a new job?”

“Don’t know,” Lane sounded even more disappointed than before. “All we did was shout.”

Possible translation: all Lane did was shout at Nigel until the kid hung up on him. Joan knew how stubborn Lane could be when he got upset, started spouting insults, and refused to listen to reason.

“Well.” She toyed with the buttons on Lane’s vest as she talked, keeping her voice purposefully light. “Maybe in a day or so, you can call him back, ask what kind of plans he’s made.”

She very, very much hoped that the kid had made concrete plans, and hadn’t decided to drop out of school to play gigs with his band or something equally stupid.

“S’pose.”

Joan knew this was not the end of that train of thought, and so, after a couple of minutes of silence, when Lane shifted and put an arm around her shoulders, she pretended not to notice, and just waited for him to say something else.

“I scraped together as much money as I could just to get to school. To finish school. It—I’m sure you did the same.”

“Well. I got married and divorced first.”

His breath caught in his chest. “Did you?”

“Mm hm.” She patted his left pectoral with one hand. “Technically, it was an annulment. Nobody expected me to attend college in the first place.”

“Why not?”

“Mostly money,” Joan answered, although she’d had good grades. Plus, she remembered some of the nasty gossip that had drifted around her high school. _Slept her way to the honor roll,_ et cetera. Nothing ever changed. “But from an academic standpoint, if I’d gone straight after graduation, I don’t think I’d have appreciated it as much.”

“Hm,” said Lane.

Clearly, that was too pointed. Quickly, Joan propped herself up onto one elbow in order to study him. Lane’s forehead was scrunched up and his mouth was turned down; lines of concern were etched all over his face. The dark circles that ringed his eyes told her he might have even been worrying over this for a couple of days. She wondered when Nigel had dropped out, and how long he’d waited to tell his father about this. No wonder Lane was so upset. He looked strung out with stress.

“Here,” she said, and without thinking, leaned forward and kissed his forehead. As she pulled away, she brushed a stray piece of hair behind his ear.

Lane let out a heavy sigh. His eyes had closed.

Joan leaned in and kissed his quirked eyebrow, and then his cheek, and then captured his mouth with hers, delicate and soft. They exchanged a couple of brief, sweet kisses, before she pulled away to look at him.

“Will you,” Lane began, and his eyes skittered away from her face before darting back, “keep—kissing me?”

She touched his face with one palm, and felt vindicated when one corner of his mouth turned up in the smallest of smiles.

“Sure.”

Joan was sitting in the back of a cab early the next morning when she realized, abruptly, that she and Lane hadn’t even slept together last night. Hadn’t even tried, although she’d been lying directly on top of him for a solid half hour. They’d kissed for a little while, talked a little more, and then fallen asleep until the alarm sounded, very early this morning.

A shiver rushed into her stomach, and she quickly turned her attention to the cars that were zipping past her window. She tried not to dwell on why she didn’t want to think too deeply about next Thursday, and why the thought of doing anything but making love with Lane made her so terribly anxious.

 

**

 

“Hello there.”

Inside their usual suite, Joan barely grunted in response to Lane’s buoyant greeting, and tossed her satchel and coat into a shapeless heap on the floor by the leather armchair before flinging herself facedown onto the plush bed.

He made a surprised noise.

“Everything all right?”

Slowly, Joan sat up, pulled off one patent heel with a whimper, and cupped the ball of her foot, which was so sore it was blotched a streaky red and white.

“Augh. It hurts so bad.”

The muscle had been tender and painful for a couple of days, but a long afternoon of errands had aggravated whatever she’d done to it. Once she'd gotten within sight of the hotel, every step towards the building had essentially been sharp, stabbing agony.

“Ouch!” she hissed, as she tried to rub the persistent throbbing out of the muscle with one clumsy hand.

“Here.” Lane had already taken off his vest and trousers, but not much else; he approached her in shirt, shorts, and sock feet, complete with the garters. In his left hand was the small bottle of almond oil they sometimes used as lubricant. “Let me have a look at it, hm?”

He knelt down in front of her on the plush carpet. Automatically, she spread her legs to make room for him. Lane winked at her once he noticed.

“Start a little lower down, I think.”

Without a word, as briskly as if he were a doctor treating a patient, he reached up her skirt, unclasped her stockings, and peeled them down her legs. Once these were off, he slicked up his hands and kneaded soft, patient circles into the ball of her right foot, followed by her left. After almost twenty minutes of being massaged, Joan couldn't help the contented moans that fell from her lips. By the time his palms roamed steady, firm strokes up her calves all the way back down to her toes, she was putty in his hands.

“Perfect,” she sighed as his fingertips traced a gentle path from her ankles back down to her toes. She flexed against the soft touch, which made him chuckle and wiggle her second toe between one finger and thumb. “God, that feels good.”

“Good.” Lane bent his head and kissed the knuckle of that same toe, then the top of her foot, just below the seam of her ankle. He was cradling her heel in two hands. “Little piggies are happier now, I hope.”

Joan let out a derisive snort. “My toes aren't piggies.”

“Oh, yes, they are.” Lane kissed the side of her foot, now. One hand slid up to cup the side of her knee.

“No. Piggies are fat,” she told him.

“No.” He shook his head slightly as he rubbed the top of her ankle with one thumb, and nuzzled into her calf with a sharp exhale. “These’re the trimmest, tiniest, cutest piggies of all. Because they hold you up.”

“Oh, my god,” Joan shut her eyes so she didn't have to watch him finish this ridiculous analogy. “Whatever.”

Lane’s hands were already sliding up to her thighs. “She's got something else on her mind today.”

He leaned in and pressed a firm kiss to her left thigh. Joan’s nipples tightened in anticipation, and she quickly spread her legs so he could move closer. Before he could touch her in earnest, she tugged gently at his collar, and carefully swung her legs up onto the mattress, one at a time, so he could lie down between them.

“Here, do me like this.”

Lane kissed her left thigh again before he helped her shimmy her skirt, garter belt, and underwear down her hips, then got up and got settled between her legs. Finally, he rested his weight on his elbows, with his hands brushing lightly over her stomach.

“Nice and relaxing.”

“Hmph.” Joan closed her eyes again. “Easier on the knees.”

“Ooh. Ta.”

Lane exhaled softly on her bare flesh, then leaned forward and nibbled at her clit so gently it made Joan sigh; she took his head in both hands with a happy contented breath as he began to work.

“Oh,” she whispered as his tongue swiped a particularly sensitive spot. “There.”

His pleased moan rumbled against her, and the buzzing sensation sent a shiver down her spine. Her entire body was heavy with relaxation. Sleepy and delirious, she started petting his hair as he worked, keeping her movements slow and languorous. God, he was so good at this. He always made her feel so good.

When she opened her eyes again, it was pitch-black outside, and the TV was the only light in the room. A waving flag flickered across the screen in black and white as the national anthem played at a very low, almost inaudible, volume. And beside her, still wearing the same clothes he’d had on this afternoon, Lane was fast asleep and snoring slightly.

Realization hit her in an instant. She’d fallen asleep when he was going down on her. Oh, holy shit, how insulting.

What she couldn’t understand was why he’d bothered to stay. He could have left her a note and gone home. He could have woken her up and asked her what the hell she was thinking. Hell, they could have even rescheduled for Friday. She’d give up one weekend night if it meant not welshing on their agreement.

For a second, Joan thought about shaking him awake and apologizing profusely. But as she studied him, and watched soft light from the television play over his slack, unguarded face, she got another idea. A wicked idea.

Maybe turnabout would be fair play?

Carefully, she reached over and slid her palm across the front of his shorts, rubbing him until his cock twitched to life under her hand. And when it bulged up through the soft cotton of his underwear, she spent several minutes just teasing him: unbuttoning his shirt and running her short nails across his bare chest and stomach, cupping him over the fabric and watching his mouth twitch up in his sleep as she stroked him. Kissing soft trails across his waistband or up to his neck so he would sigh in his sleep.

 _Don't wake up yet,_ she urged Lane as she slowly tugged his waistband down, and relished the way his cock sprung free from the fabric, twitching twice towards his stomach, clearly begging for more.

Joan didn’t give his body what it wanted. She didn't want him to wake up until he was right on the edge.

Gently, she leaned down and licked the head of his cock with the tip of her tongue, slowly stroking all of him with one hand while her mouth laved little kisses across his head. Lane grunted low in his throat, and Joan looked up, assuming he’d woken up, but all he did was turn his head from left to right, his brow crinkling up. Maybe he was dreaming.

She kept going. By the time he was dripping wet, and his abdomen kept tightening up with every feather-light touch, Joan knew he was ready, and took him in all the way down. As she bobbed back up, messy and rough, he stirred and whimpered, and one leg twitched up at the knee. She put a hand on his quadricep and teased one thumb across the jumping muscle in his inner thigh.

When he tried to speak, his voice cracked, and nothing came out but a long, gibberish moan.

“Hnnngh!”

Joan smirked around him, and just kept going. Her nails traced over his hips and legs as she pleasured him. Lane didn’t say a word, just clumsily bucked against her touch and whimpered until he came into her mouth with a shocked gasp. She sucked him all down, and kept softly mouthing at him and petting him through the shivers, intending to relax him the way he’d done for her, before.

When she looked up, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes sparkling with mischief, Lane was conked out again, with his head lolling to the right on the soft pillow. His face was flushed, his mouth was open, and his cock was still hanging out of his shorts. God, he looked so obscenely disheveled. And nobody else was allowed to see him this way. Only Joan.

Affection bubbled up inside her like a mouthful of club soda, tingling her throat and almost choking her as she watched his chest rise and fall with deep, even breaths. By the time her pulse jumped fast in her wrists and throat, she couldn’t force herself to leave. She couldn’t even cut the TV off, just reached out, so carefully it felt like moving through molasses, and traced over the curves of his lips and jaw before she kissed his forehead.

_He’s so beautiful like this._

Her heart hammered in her throat as she pulled her hand away from his rough, stubbled face and traced it down his bare chest. He sighed in his sleep. Joan curled into his side, closed her eyes, and breathed in his familiar scent as she tried to relax, the combination of musk and pipe tobacco and a faint whiff of talcum powder lingering sweetly in her nose.

_You shouldn’t be here. You should go home. What are you doing?_

She let out a breath, and tried to ignore the warning voice inside her head. Her fingers twitched against his ribs; Joan resisted the urge to caress him again.

Just go to sleep. Just go to sleep.

Her eyes fluttered closed. When she woke up again, daylight was filtering into the room through the pale brocade curtains, and Lane was gone, along with his things. His side of the bed was neatly made and the TV was off. The only clue that anyone else had been here was the scrap of notebook paper folded in thirds on his fluffed pillow, and the fact that her clothes – coat, dress, pantyhose and all – hung neatly on the back of the chair, with her shoes sitting just to the left of the armrest.

_Room’s yours till noon. Sleep in, if you like._

She did.

 

**

           

The next Thursday, Joan arrived at the hotel with an unusual flutter of anticipation hovering low in her stomach, but when she shut the heavy door behind her, she noticed Lane was sitting at the small desk, fiddling with a pencil. His briefcase was closed and sitting by the table leg. He hadn’t even taken off his coat.

“Did you just get here?” she asked, although the anticipation in her gut had already turned to dread.

Thankfully, Lane didn’t make her wait for an answer. He didn’t stutter over some enormous speech, or use some of the four worst words in the English language. _We need to talk._ The sentence fell from his lips quickly and quietly.

“Joan, I can’t do this anymore.”

Her mouth fell open.

_Are you fucking kidding me? Why now? What the hell do you think you’re—?_

Quickly, she snapped it shut.

“You couldn’t have dumped me before I came all the way over here?”

He closed his eyes briefly, like he was steeling himself for something much crueler than a simple brush-off.

“Don’t.” He cleared his throat, still tapping the pencil in his hand against the desk in a nervous rhythm. “It’s just—I’m tired of all this—fooling around. This was never supposed to be permanent, and it—well, the arrangement doesn’t make sense anymore, if it ever did. I’m sorry to say that, but it—you must know it’s true.”

Oh, my god. Her stomach lurched, and for one horrible second, she was sure she was going to burst out laughing, although the situation wasn’t funny at all. Instead, she stared at the bedpost until she could form a decent reply, sharp words as cutting as razor blades.

“Well, if we’re going to be _sensible_ , then let’s just sleep with whoever we want. We’ll have more fun that way.”

_I. I’ll have more fun._

Lane expelled a long breath, staring back at her like he knew exactly why she was being so harsh. His eyes bored holes through hers.

“You should know that I hold you in such—high estimation—”

“Oh, don’t bother with the bogus compliments,” Joan interrupted, too stung to do anything but snap at him. “If you’re tired of fooling around with me, then that’s your own business, isn’t it?”

_If you’re tired of me, then I don’t care. I can be tired of you, too._

He was quiet for a second.

“Just—tell me you understand the reasons. That’s all I ask.”

Her throat tightened, but she refused to let him see her cry.

“Yes.” _Obviously,_ she wanted to hiss, except that it wasn’t obvious at all. Her eyes stung and her throat kept clenching and a fine tremor had rushed into her hands. The tails of her scarf kept catching a nonexistent breeze.

“Good. Erm. I’ll pay for—for tonight, then.”

“Fine,” Joan said again, and drew herself to her full height. “Well, I’ve got some more errands to run, so I’m just going to go now.”

Lane looked as sick as if she’d just socked him in the stomach. But what the hell was she supposed to do? Run into his arms for one last round? Beg him to stay?

 _Anything,_ a little voice inside her begged. _Everything. Make him understand!_

Ruthlessly, Joan pushed it down, tilted her head to one side, and regarded Lane with the cool glare she used to reserve for their most hated clients. It was distant and sly and would hurt him more than any awkward platitude she could have fumbled through.

“Have a good night,” she said snidely, and walked out of the room without even looking back.

Friday was agonizing; the entire morning was full of back-to-back meetings, and in every goddamn one of them, she had to sit across from Lane and pretend she didn’t notice how quiet he was, or how pale and stiff he looked. She had to pretend she wasn’t purposefully ignoring him every time his knowing gaze prickled across her skin and wound her body tight with anxiety.

For her part, she compensated so much she felt overexposed and raw, laughing too loudly at Pete’s sly comments or talking too brightly about Peggy’s new campaign ideas. All she could think, as she faced the scratched square bathroom mirror between two long strategy sessions, was that Lane did not get to hurt her like this. She used her pressed powder to sweep away the sickly high flush that colored her face, and ignored the weirdly blank glimmer in her eyes. They weren’t tears. It wasn’t sadness. He didn’t get to do this to her, because she didn’t even like him that much. The two of them were just fooling around, for god’s sake.

And if she genuinely felt like crying by the time night rolled around—to the point where even _Kevin_ asked if she was okay—if she lay in bed and stared up at her ceiling in the darkness, swallowing the lump in her throat like a dramatic little fool and wondering what the hell had gone wrong, it was all right, because Lane would never see it. She’d get over it, time would pass, and this would eventually be nothing but a distant, ridiculous memory.

 

_one week later_

 

Friday morning, Joan arrived at the office so early that even Dawn was still en route. The only secretary in the entire building – besides Caroline, who Joan knew was at the bank, changing this month’s petty cash from Roger into smaller bills – was Meredith.

That little idiot stood impatiently to Joan’s left in a doll-sized lacy dress, rattling off information from a bunch of message slips before Joan could even get the door unlocked. Of course the damn key was stuck again. She needed to speak to maintenance about replacing those locks, and soon.

“Oh! And you had a message from Mr. Cutler—”

Joan unlatched the door and shoved it open, only to be totally stupefied by the magnificent scene in front of her. Spread out all over her office, covering almost every flat surface except the floor, were vases and vases of fresh cut sunflowers, their vivid golden yellows and browns and greens mingling together into a rich, warm bronze that washed the entire room in a bright golden glow.

Joan stared at the blooms, shocked into silence, for several seconds without speaking. Her hand was still poised on the doorknob.

_Oh, my god. He remembered._

“Wow,” Meredith whispered from a few feet away, her voice completely awed. “They’re beautiful.”

Without warning, without even a second to shoo the secretary away or duck into a private corner, Joan burst into tears, flung her satchel and coat on the ground, and covered her mouth with one hand as she rushed toward the sofa.

“Joan! What’s wrong?”

“I—I—”

 _I’m fine,_ she meant to choke out, but she couldn’t even speak, and sobbed even harder because someone was actually witnessing this excruciating display. Oh, god, why couldn’t she stop?

“But—don’t you like them?” Meredith asked, glancing around at the field of vases as if this was somehow the florist’s fault. “Who sent them?”

Joan wanted to scream at her to get the hell out, but her mouth refused to form the words. She was in love with Lane. Oh, god, she wasn’t supposed to fall in love. She was supposed to shake off the loneliness and use their trysts as an opportunity to find a man who was perfect for her—someone more sociable and smooth, who wouldn’t be so goddamn weird or who wouldn’t make dumb jokes about her ugly feet. And instead she fell for someone who broke her heart.

“I’m s-so s-stupid,” she choked out instead, and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, as if the gesture would magically dry her eyes and shut her up.

“You’re not stupid!” Meredith wasn’t leaving. Joan glanced over and whimpered when she realized the girl had walked closer. Oh, god, she was actually going to try and comfort her. “Joan, stupid people can't be name partners.”

Joan swiped a hand under her eyes, still hiccuping, and whimpered when her index finger came away smudged with brown mascara.

This is what hell must be like.

Out in the hallway, wingtips thudded against tile, and Joan heard Roger’s voice boom across the alcove.

“Great! Joanie, you’re—”

He didn’t even finish the sentence. Joan watched his mouth fall open as he took it all in: the sea of sunflowers, her pathetic crying, Meredith standing by the arm of the sofa, wringing her hands.

“The hell’s going on here?”

Joan covered her face and dissolved into thick, noisy sobs.

“Ooookay. Come on, sweetheart, shake a leg and give us a minute, will you?”

As Roger spoke, Joan felt, rather than saw Meredith leave, and moaned in relief once the door clicked shut. If she was going to break down at work like a moron, at least she didn’t have to worry about twenty people eavesdropping in the hallway as she choked back her own snot.

“Hey, Red.” Roger plunked down next to her, and put a hand on her back. “What’s got you down?”

Joan swayed sideways and leaned into his shoulder as she cried even harder.

He petted the back of her hair the way he used to when she was too shy to say boo to him in the hallways, one thumb stroking over the nape of her neck.

“Is it cause you’re working in a greenhouse?”

Instead of laughing, she kept crying, and so they didn’t even move for a few minutes. Once she had some semblance of self-control back, she sat back up with a groan, and accepted the balled-up handkerchief he practically shoved into her hand.

“Oh, god, Roger. I’m just so stupid.”

He made a disbelieving face. She wiped her cheeks, blew her nose, and tried to explain it again.

“I’m in love with someone who doesn’t love me back.” She let out a sniff, and felt more pathetic than she had in twenty years. “That’s it.”

Roger’s eyebrows jumped up.

“So, it’s not with the guy who sent you half the florist’s?”

God, of course he’d already put that together.

“They’re not—” she struggled for words as her eyes welled again. “He broke up with me on Thursday.”

“Could be trying to get ya back. You see a card anywhere in this forest?”

“I don’t kn—oh.” Joan hiccupped, and gave up on coherence. “God. I wasn’t even supposed to _like_ him. We were juh—just—fooling around for a long time, and then he—he said he wanted to stop, and n-now it’s just—” she let out a low, sad moan. “I can’t see him every day if we’re not together. I miss him too much.”

She watched mutely as Roger glanced toward the doorway, and then looked back at her, curiosity written all over his face.

“So it’s not Don,” he said casually. Joan gave him a baleful glare, and watched his mouth quirk up in a mischievous smile.

“Okay, Campbell.”

“Ugh.”

“Harry.”

 _“Ugh,”_ said Joan again, with more vehemence. She knew what Roger was doing. He was going to throw her a few softballs, then go with the first name on his list who seemed halfway plausible. “Be serious.”

“I am serious. If I see Bob Benson doing any skywriting today, that’ll be my first clue.”

Joan shook her head no.

Roger huffed out an intrigued noise.

“All right. So we’re looking for somebody who’d break up with you after fooling around—who you wouldn’t want to hurt—and who might even send you flowers, afterwards. Your favorite flowers.”

Her stomach clenched. Just say it. Just say it.

“Sorry, is Mrs. Harris busy?”

At the sound of Lane’s voice, Joan gasped and whirled to stare at the closed door in a panic, but it didn't open, and Dawn Chambers – thank god for Dawn Chambers – answered Lane’s question in a practiced, measured tone.

“She's on a call, unfortunately. Should I have her find you, afterward?”

“What? No.” Lane sounded annoyed. “Erm. Never mind.”

As Lane walked away, Joan turned back to stare at Roger, who was watching her with obvious, knowing sympathy.

“Don't make fun of me,” was all she whispered.

“Hey, come on.”

She slumped forward and pressed two balled-up hands to her forehead so she didn’t have to look at Roger anymore. And to his credit, he didn’t say anything else; after a few seconds, she felt the sofa cushions shift as he got up and walked over to her desk. Another few seconds passed. The soft scrape of a letter opener tearing through paper pierced the air, and Roger returned to the couch. He plunked down into his seat, hard, as if one good bounce would send Joan seesawing into the air and completely cheer her up. All she felt instead was a small ripple of movement.

“What’s it say?” she asked. It was probably a pithy, meaningless comment that Scarlett or the florist picked out, some mundane expression of well wishes that could be equally appropriate for a funeral or a wedding or any acquaintanceship. _With gratitude_ or _many thanks_ or the dreaded _can’t we be friends._

“Sure you don’t want to read it yourself?”

Joan shook her head no.

“Hmph. Well, it’s an actual card.” Roger cleared his throat as he rustled around his jacket for his glasses. She brought her hands away from her face and sat up just in time to see him squint at the florist’s spidery writing over the top of his glasses. He gave her a half-smile. “Simple. Good penmanship.”

“Just tell me,” she said.

Roger cleared his throat again, and read it in the same voice he used when he was reading legal papers or serious company memos. No jokey accents or stupid mannerisms.

_“Though the seasons change, and summer flowers wither, I will think of you always.”_

Her eyes welled again. She could practically hear Lane’s voice in her head. He was letting her down easy.

“Oh, god.”

“Joanie,” Roger said softly, but she waved him off, and snatched the card out of his hands.

“Give me that.”

On the front was an illustration of a sunflower. Neat calligraphy script, title case, bordered the drawing in green ink. _With love._

“I’ll come back in a minute.” Roger put a hand on Joan’s knee as he got to his feet with a grunt.

She didn’t say anything. All she could do was stare at the front of that stupid, stupid card with a quivering lip, unsure whether to cry or scream.

 

**

 

Roger hummed to himself as he ambled downstairs and passed the battalion of skirts who were setting up the conference room for another breakfast meeting. Two girls were arguing over the numbers of trays; apparently _someone_ – not naming names – had miscounted the baked goods.

“He’s busy,” warned Scarlett as Roger approached her desk. She was in the middle of important business, obviously—filing her nails.

Roger ignored her and rapped on the door with a loose fist.

“Hey, English, you in there?”

He tried the knob. Locked.

“I’m busy!” snapped Lane from somewhere inside.

Roger winked at Scarlett, and made sure only she could hear this part. “This’ll get him up.” Then he raised his voice so Lane could hear him through the door. “Girls want to know if you’ve seen any extra deli platters around here. Something about a pastry plate falling off the truck?”

“I never said that,” Scarlett protested.

Inside, there was a long pause before Lane answered again.

“Erm. No. I don’t—no.”

“All right,” said Roger, and grinned at Scarlett when he heard the sofa cushions creak and footsteps shuffle towards the door. “Well, I’ll leave ya to—”

The doorknob clicked open. Scarlett’s mouth pursed in surprise, but Roger didn’t say anything, just winked at her again and pushed into the office like this had been his plan all along.

Inside was a disaster. The desk was stacked with untouched papers and folders, and the coffee table was piled so high with junk food it looked like an entire scout troop had been camping out here. One cushion was propped against the armrest like a giant pillow. Lane had clearly been lying here depressed all morning, or hell, maybe even all week. With a surge of glee, Roger spied an open platter of bear claws sitting on the far end table, next to a can of spray cheese and a box of Ritz crackers that looked as if they’d been sitting there for a while.

“I—I got the bear claws earlier,” Lane mumbled, which made Roger scrub a hand across his mouth to keep from laughing. “From a bakery.”

“Sure.”

Lane huffed out a sigh. From this angle, he resembled a pouty bulldog, all droopy eyes and jowls. And he looked like shit, to be honest. His bloodshot eyes were ringed with dark circles, and he was real pasty, like he was sick.

“What do you want, Roger?”

“You been upstairs recently?” Roger jerked a thumb in the direction of the staircase as he sat down in the red chair and propped his feet up on the magazine-covered table. “It’s a botanical garden up there.”

Lane made an annoyed noise.

Roger just tutted. “What? No word about Mrs. Harris’s admirer?”

Lane reached out for another bear claw with a scoff. “Her business.” More pointedly. “Not yours.”

“Ah, come on,” Roger waved a dismissive hand through the air, as if he hadn’t heard. “I don’t care who it is. But I’ll tell ya, she seems crazy over this one.”

“If—” Lane hesitated, and his voice softened slightly, “Roger, for god’s sake, she was crying, earlier. Leave her alone.”

Huh. Interesting that he knew that.

“What? I’m not talking out of my ass.” Roger got up again, and bit into a bear claw, chomping down on the bread with his back teeth as he talked. “Hea’her say th’she loved ‘em.”

Lane was silent for a second.

“What?”

“Him.” Roger swallowed the last bite with relish, and licked icing from his fingers with a wet smack. “The guy. She’s in love with him.”

“Stop it,” Lane muttered.

“Hey, I’m serious.” Roger wiped both corners of his mouth with the pad of one thumb, and straightened his mustache to make sure all the crumbs were out. “I mean, I give that gal a lot of crap, but when it comes down to it, she’s an old friend. Deserves to be happy, you know?”

Lane’s eyes had gotten as round and alarmed as that deli plate he’d stolen from the secretaries. Roger pretended not to notice, and just shrugged, like this was the kind of story he’d tell anyone, if he was in the right kind of mood.

“And Joanie’s so head over heels it’s practically visible from space. If this guy can’t put two and two together in time to snag her up, he’s a real moron.”

He met Lane’s eyes for a half-second, and kept his face as serious as possible as the other man blinked back at him.

Roger summoned up a shit-eating grin as he gestured toward the packages of junk food that littered the table, and hopped up from the red chair. “Anyway. Enjoy your party.”

“How did you know that she—loved him?”

Jesus. The hope on Lane’s face was so nakedly obvious it would have been comical on any other day. Roger pretended not to notice the sudden feverish light that had crept into Lane’s eyes, and just shrugged.

“Easy. I asked.”

 

**

 

After another hour, Joan was pacing around her office like a caged tiger at the zoo, alternately restless, furious, and depressed. Every time she glanced around and caught the face of another bright sunflower peering up at her, she felt like crying again.

_Why had he broken things off if he was just going to do something like this—make a big gesture? Was he trying to apologize? Was he telling her to shake it off? Why would he send her her favorite flower if he didn’t actually want to be together?_

Outside, Joan heard Lane’s familiar crisp English accent as he argued with Clara. She steeled herself for another gut-wrenching conversation.

When the door opened, and she met Lane’s knowing gaze, the shock of seeing him was like being stabbed with a needle.

“I need to speak with you,” he said, and shut and locked the door behind him.

Joan made an unhappy noise. “What’s there to say?”

“Plenty, I think. Only—didn’t you get the card?“

“Oh, for god’s sake!” Joan slammed her fist against the wall. The picture hanging a few feet away wobbled precariously, but didn’t fall. “You break up with me and then you send me half a greenhouse? I mean, Jesus! Do I really have to get your sorries shoved right in my face right after getting dumped?”

“My—sorries?” Lane went milk white. “What?”

“Oh, did I miss something?” she said harshly. “Did you suddenly decide you weren’t bored with me anymore? Or that you could deign to keep sleeping with me after all?”

“Don’t—don’t put words in my mouth, I never said any of those things! I’m—this isn’t boring at all. Why would I say that? Why would any of that be true?”

“I don’t give a shit! Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

“Oh, my god—Joan, no, you’ve—you’ve got it all wrong,” Lane said quickly. “I—that’s exactly why I ended it, because I thought it might—I thought it would be better if we stopped. I _never_ wanted to hurt you.”

“Well, it did hurt,” she whispered hotly, and cursed the tears that sprung back into her eyes. “Especially since you didn’t even bother to tell me why!”

“Because I—” Lane’s voice caught, which made her shut up, and shut up fast. She felt like she was barely pulling air into her lungs as he spoke. “I couldn’t be your lover and pretend to feel nothing. I _have_ feelings. Very—ardent feelings.”

Joan stared at him, incredulous, as he kept going.

“I mean, it’s you,” he said. His piercing stare sent a shiver into her legs. “It’s always been you.”

She still couldn’t say anything.

He flapped a hand towards the nearest table full of vases, and spun on his heel. “Christ. And I’ve—completely overdone it with the flowers, obviously. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I really did think you’d like them. Went to the—” he groaned out a sigh. “Never mind. God, you don’t want to hear this.”

His shoulders slumped in a dejected way, and he stopped talking. Joan barely noticed; all she was thinking about was the subtext of his last few sentences. _It’s you. It’s always been you._

“Do you love me?” she asked, so quietly she wasn’t sure if she’d spoken at all.

He looked terrified. “Yes.”

“Oh.” She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose like she was trying to stifle a sneeze. What she was really trying to do was keep from bursting into tears again. “I—I love you, too.”

“You do?”

Lane’s face cracked open on a smile, and the light in his eyes was so joyful that just looking at him stole Joan’s breath.

“Yeah,” she said, and laughed a little, although she’d already started crying again. “I r-really do.”

All the awful tension was sucked out of the room in an instant. The flowers weren’t mocking anymore, just made her feel relieved and delighted beyond words. Joan couldn’t help leaning toward the nearest vase in order to smell their fresh scent. Her eyes fluttered shut as she breathed in and out, and when she opened them, Lane was standing beside her, with his hand gently pressed against her right elbow. Without another word, without another second of hesitation, she launched herself into his arms.

“Don’t you dare do that to me again,” she scolded between kisses. Her face was wet and Lane was shaking like crazy and she could hardly string two words together. “You can’t—” kiss “—keep me—” kiss “—hanging like that, not ever.”

“Never,” Lane promised in a low voice. “I won’t. Oh, god, my darling.”

Several chaste kisses turned extremely heated, and they scrabbled to get as close as possible without just falling into the floor and going for it right then and there. Joan’s resolve probably would have been in trouble, if it weren’t for the idiot who suddenly banged into her locked door, face-first.

“Ow!” Ginsberg’s voice rang out loud and clear, and when he spoke again, his voice was so nasal and muffled it sounded like a bunch of horns honking. “Seriously? Joan, what the hell?”

Lane leapt backwards, and covered his mouth to quiet a loud braying laugh. Joan threw a handkerchief from her purse in his general direction and ran a trembling hand across her face before speaking up.

“Just a minute!”

She straightened her clothes, wiped her eyes, and glanced over to make sure Lane was presentable, which he was. He stuffed her handkerchief into his pocket, and indicated that she could open the door.

“See you Thursday?” she whispered with a wink.

He winked back. “It’s a date.”

The second she opened the door, Ginsberg blew right past Lane and into her office without even blinking. He didn’t even seem to care why Lane was in her office alone, or notice the flowers that blanketed every table within reach, just whirled to stare at her.

“Okay, look, this Chevy thing’s been driving me up the fucking wall. If you didn’t watch the ad the night it aired, you have to tell me.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she offered with a snort, and gestured toward the hallway. “That was months ago. Is that all you wanted?”

Ginsberg’s mouth dropped open. She was already pushing him back out the door. Clara’s desk was empty, which explained a lot.

“Because I’ve got a phone call that can’t wait.”

“Wait—no—was it because it came on at seven instead of seven twenty? I was supposed to get a better slot, you know! Harry fucked up the placement!”

Joan had already closed the door and locked it again so she could be alone for a little while. She couldn’t even hear the rest of what Ginsberg was saying. All she felt was that bright, fiery glow of happiness, like sunshine slowly warming her entire body, as she stared at all the flowers, and felt their faces reflecting her excitement back at her tenfold.

_It’s a date. He loves me, and it's a date._

She smiled.  
           

**Author's Note:**

> [Fourteen Paintings by Vincent van Gogh](https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2366?locale=en) was a real exhibit that the MOMA put on in August of 1945 -- and they even have[ a press release](https://www.moma.org/d/c/press_releases/W1siZiIsIjMyNTQ4NCJdXQ.pdf?sha=3b4a54abe224f9f3) about it on their website! I was hoping they'd actually _show_ Sunflowers in that series, but they didn't, and it seemed more right to go on a tangent about another painting in the story than to smack Lane in the face with that clue. If you're curious, [here's](https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/wheatfields-under-thunderclouds-1890) what _Wheatfields Under Thunderclouds_ actually looks like.
> 
> Related: I just love writing lovesick Joan so much. She's hilariously stubborn about her own feelings/needs yet STILL sticks to the same course of action until the last possible minute. When you pit that against Lane's particular brand of stubbornness (which is to stick his head in the sand and pretend everything's not exploding, and/or run away screaming), it can really screw things up! Thank god they both got over themselves, right?
> 
> Also, I cannot believe this is over 12K words. This was supposed to be a quick one-off piece!


End file.
